E-commerce companies usually measure their success in terms of their revenue goals. However, the revenue helps just the company. For a company to be successful and always be on top of their target audience’s mind, it is imperative to close the loop and think about the complete decision making, buying, and post-purchase experiences.
Traditionally, an e-commerce funnel refers to how many users enter the funnel by landing up on the website/app via-à-vis how many end up reaching the bottom of the funnel by successfully making a purchase. In reality, the user journey is a bit more complicated. Some customers land upon the products through a search engine, others end up using the myriad of filters and sorting options to zero in on what they want, while there are others who simply abandon the portal since they couldn’t find any exciting offers.
To drive customers through your funnel, one needs to understand how these behaviors and experiences impact their likelihood to purchase and nudge more users along the winning paths.
What is an E-commerce Conversion Funnel?
The idea behind the conversion funnel is the funnel metaphor that illustrates the gradual decline of the number of potential customers as they are guided through the conversion path. The e-commerce conversion funnel is a representation of the stages online shoppers pass through on their way to completing a purchase.
(apologies for my drawing skills)
Awareness
This is the first step of the conversion funnel where people will learn about the brand. The target audience is attracted by increasing the platform’s visibility across multiple channels — both online and offline. This is usually achieved using advertisements, social networks, content marketing etc. Determining the sources that are currently driving most of the quality traffic will help platform owners make better-informed decisions about which tactics are most effective.
Interest
This indicates that the platform/product has the customer’s attention. It can easily be identified by users who land up on the website and start browsing the products and perform search queries. At this point, engaging content, irresistible offers, and visually striking design will prove to be very handy at this stage. It could also be useful to experiment with some baiting tactics like asking for an e-mail ID in exchange for discounts. Suggesting the users to subscribe to newsletters is another great way to build interest.
Desire
The next natural step is to build trust and desire and help your prospects learn more about your brand and products. Visitors that reach this funnel stage are considered highly qualified leads and need to be nurtured to move down the funnel. Email workflow campaigns that are designed to deliver targeted, personalized content are a reliable technique to keep prospects engaged and coming back to your website.
Action
This is the heart of the matter, the final, crucial step of your sales funnel. By this step, your visitors have passed through the conversion funnel and have begun engaging with your brand (they’ve downloaded something, subscribed to something, or even called someone). Now, your goal is to convince your prospects to convert by purchasing something or completing another desired action. If a lot of visitors churn at this stage, it indicates that your lead nurturing tactics are in poor shape.
What’s wrong with this funnel?
The problem with this type of analysis, however, is that a real customer journey is much more complicated. Many of your users won’t follow a linear progression through